It was clear to me that Elijah was arguing Indigenous Nations are entitled to our rightful share of the wealth of our resources of our land.

KAIROS’ reconciliation event scheduled for May 29 – June 3 is on Algonquin Traditional territory yet the event avoids addressing what the Algonquin in Ontario are facing: A land claims process that forces us to extinguish/relinquish our land and resource rights, the very land and resources needed to re-build Indigenous structures of health care, education, and a legal system that speaks to who we are and thus our ability to live a good life.

Disenfranchising the Algonquin Anishinaabeg in Ontario in this way should be unacceptable. Canadians, settler people, descendants of settler people, and new immigrant people really need to think critically about who they are allied with when it comes to the matter of reconciliation.

I offer here 5 short articles to learn more. People genuinely interested in learning more about the limitations of reconciliation can also purchase The Truth that Wampum Tells: My Debwewin on the Algonquin Land Claims Process at this link: http://www.lynngehl.com/2-truth-that-wampum-tells.html

1. The heart break of Algonquin genocide
“The Algonquin bands located on both sides of the river were some of the first Nations recorded by Champlain so you can be sure that the French and British knew full well who we were. During European struggles for new land the Algonquin Anishinaabeg were allies with the French. For this, we were severely punished when the British eventually took over.” http://rabble.ca/news/2013/03/heart-break-algonquin-genocide

4. First Nations finance their own demise through land claims process
“Canada the dominator had to do something with the original inhabitants of the land that it wanted, so settlers from afar were shipped over the ocean blue to crowd out the Algonquin and thus our rights to land and resources. A series of policies and laws were instituted to displace and dispose of our ancestors, who never made treaty with the Canadian nation-state.” https://ricochet.media/en/318/first-nations-finance-their-own-demise-through-land-claims-process

Please like and share this blog. You can also subscribe here but make sure you verify your subscription. Look in your spam folder.

Note: If there is a typo, grammatical error, or sentence structure error in my work and it is offending you greatly to the point that you are tempted to dismiss my knowledge offered and possibly even begin to poke at my education, please take the time to remind yourself not to be an ableist when reading about issues of colonization and structural oppression. Also keep in mind that inherent in ableism is both sexism and racism. Adopting an intersectional framework is a best practice approach when reading and learning. That said, please do not hesitate to report an error as this is always valued. Chi-Miigwetch

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been a major failure, from my perspective. Lots of truth, but no reconciliation — thought the United Church did offer an apology in 1986 (which has been received but not yet accepted). See: http://unitedchurch.ca/aboriginal/relationships/apologies.
In response to the TRC, the federal government's policy has been "same old same old" — colonization, in its many forms.
Enough is enough.